


A Cold Day in Winterhell

by MovieQueen44



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Game of Thrones References, Gen, Inspired by Game of Thrones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 18:53:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MovieQueen44/pseuds/MovieQueen44
Summary: How did Game of Thrones come to be? A visit to the Winterhell- I mean Winterfell- Orphanage run by the Lannister family proves not every story has a happy ending.





	A Cold Day in Winterhell

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, this is my first piece of fanfiction I'm posting ever! I have longer in progress works for several fandoms (including a longer GoT) on my computer so we'll see how this goes.
> 
> Obviously, I don't own ASoIaF/Game of Thrones and greatly appreciate George R.R. Martin's creative genius. Enjoy!

It was a brisk day at the Winterfell Orphanage or “Winterhell” as its inhabitants called it.

The day announced that the real winter was coming as the winds of winter pierced the air. Children of all ages played in the yard, for soon their threadbare coats would not be able to win the fight against the cold and they would be relegated back into the red brick keep. Who knew how long winter would last? Each year it seemed to last longer, a dark shadow creeping into the souls of the children. The long night they called it for they were not allowed to go outside. Sickness meant doctors and doctors were too much of an expense.

In the yard they did their best to play as children ought, putting a show on for the potential adopters, knowing many would later flee rather than pay the Lannister’s exorbitant adoption fees. Tywin Lannister ruled over the orphanage with an iron fist. Appearing in his late sixties, never smiling, nor laughing, he was a cold man who cared more of raising money to pay off his debts than the welfare of those in his care.

Most of them were pre-teens as the majority of families scooped up the babes. There were many stories to be told of those left behind. Most of them unhappy stories but their stories all the same and they deserve to be heard.

Recently, young Brandon fell after climbing up the ivy trellis that was curving up the building. He was a climber, quite a good one in fact, had done it hundreds of times when the adults weren’t around so it was surprising he fell. They thought he wasn’t going to make it for a while but he pulled through. All seemed well for a brief moment until they realized he lost the use of his legs. He sat in his chair watching the other children play.

That gossip Jeyne had sworn she saw a hand push him. After a quick investigation, the only people found on that floor were Jamie and Cersei, Twyin’s grown children who were visiting. The window that Bran fell from was an old room, no longer in use. Jamie and Cersei were taking naps in their respective rooms across the hall when it happened. They hadn’t heard anything.

The next week Jeyne was found in a pool of her own blood as she slit her wrists in the girl’s bathroom. It was quite the scandal and the Lannisters had to deal with several reporters, Twyin none too pleased at their attempt to drag his family’s name through the mud as they questioned his ability to run the place, at least until they gave up caring and turned to more exciting and less emotionally upsetting stories.

Soon after arrived the Sand Snakes. Three sisters with beautiful bronze skin, they were reminiscent of their namesake in that they were fierce and dangerous, having grown up in the heat of some desert in the Middle East as their father Oberyn Martell served in the army. Their mother had been a local girl he had fallen in love with and they had been happy until she had been abducted by a terrorist cell and brutally murdered. Devastated and angry at the world, Oberyn raised them to be warriors, to be able to defend themselves. He caught wind of some information, where The Mountain- the man who killed his wife- was located. He went off with a thirst for vengeance and was presumed dead. Once they arrived back in the states, their Uncle Doran tried to take care of them but as a single father in declining health with two children of his own to care for, he thought it in their best interest to turn them over to Tywin’s care.

Sitting near the lake were Theon and Asha, whose parents perished in a mysterious boating accident. Whose uncle didn’t want them and instead set himself up in their beachfront house as they were carted away. Theon had been adopted and was away less than six months before he was returned by Child Services. Roose Bolton and that bastard of a son Ramsay had been arrested for child abuse. The things they did to the boy… he never smiled and rarely spoke, only keeping company with his sister, never far from her side and always cowering in fear.

Then there was Danyelle (known as “Dany”) and her brother Vincent, two blonde children with stunning violet eyes. They were beautiful but there was something about them that was disquieting. Prospective parents were frequently drawn to them but after spending time with them thought them odd and moved on. Vincent was very protective of his sister and on those rare occasions when they would play with others, she would play the princess being guarded by the dragon (Vincent). After Vincent violently beat Jon everyone learned “You don’t want to wake the dragon!” Not to mention what happened that time a couple tried to adopt just Dany…

There are many children in Winterhell- I mean Winterfell- and those are just a few of their stories. Getting too old to play but needing to at least play the game of childhood for the potentials (adopters).

A van from Trident Handyman Company pulled up the side driveway.

“Don’t forget those wooden swords I made,” shouted Eddard Stark as his children, Jon and Arya, darted out of the van in a rush to go play with their friends. Arya rushed back to grab the sack from him and he kissed her on the forehead before she ran off looking for that boy Gendry. He was her first crush and Ned wished she could stay his little girl forever.

“You humor these kids too much Ned,” Robert Baratheon sighed exasperated with his friend as they pulled a ladder out of the back, heading over to remove the ivy that Tywin had paid them to remove. Ned didn’t like the Lannister family but he had his own family to take care of, mouths to feed, and at least this way he could check on the children. Everyone knew the place’s reputation, they were all fed and their basic needs seen to but Winterfell was not a loving place.

A while later Ned looked down from the ladder to see Jon and Arya playing with Gendry and that red-haired girl whose name he could never remember. She had the fake bow he had made and the other three the swords, they were playing near the fence, the “Wall” as they called it.

On their last ride home, Jon told him how there was a hole in the wall, a hole that looked out at Highgarden Nursing Home. That they imagined the elderly folk with their walkers and shuffling movements to be zombies and the orderlies clad in their pristine white scrubs to be the Generals, the “White Walkers.” The “White Walkers” were marching toward Winterfell and it was up to their small battalion to fight back the army of the undead.

Arya suggested it would be great if they had a dragon on their side but Ned squashed that notion as he didn’t want Jon or Arya anywhere near that crazy boy Vincent.

“George!” called Sam, “Come see! Come see! Sansa is leaving!”

“Good for her.” George muttered but didn’t move from his spot. Of course she was leaving, she was a young pretty thing and after the babes, the young pretty girls were the next to be whisked away to castles in the sky. Sansa deserved it though. The girl had endured much these past several years after her parents and her older brother Robb died in a horrific crash on their way back from Kings Landing amusement park. Margery, her best friend at the orphanage, had been adopted by some distant relatives- the wealthy Tyrell family- and was simply miserable without Sansa. They had spoiled her with everything she could ever need but she had convinced her family she needed her “sister,” at least until she was outshone by her “sister” and the girl was sent back for supposedly stealing an amethyst necklace out of Mrs. Tyrell’s jewelry box (not that Sansa would do such a thing).

During her frequent visits, Cersei Lannister took much pleasure in tormenting poor Sansa after she took note of her brother Jaime admiring the burgeoning woman-child with hair kissed by fire. Watching her berate the poor girl with verbal abuse made George think of the tale of Cinderella (the girls around here sure loved fairytales and as such the boys were forced to hear them). It didn’t help that her cruel son Joffrey, who the girls had so often referred to as the “Prince” for his good looks had turned his sights on Sansa, proving he was anything but. Over the years the girl blossomed into a beautiful young lady but turned shy, hoping if she were quiet the Lannisters would forget about her. They never did though and her sleeves were never quite long enough to cover the bruises left behind by her once beloved Prince. George would sure miss her singing voice, for when she thought no one could hear, she would sing such heartbreakingly beautiful songs.

As he crossed Sansa off of his imaginary list of those in the game, George thought of the others still on it. He made it his business to know everything about everyone, hoarding his rare sweets for information. He was the Master of Whispers and as the other children played he observed, building their mundane lives into something greater, something fantastical. He often kept to himself seeming only to tolerate the company of Sam, another outcast with a penchant for fantasy. He loved hearing George’s stories, only complaining how more needed happy endings to which George would reply, “That’s life.”

He surveyed the scene as Sansa embraced her aunt. Her lone bag taken to a nearby blue sportscar by a man with a goatee who previously stood by leering at the girl. The man came back and kissed the aunt before speaking some words to the girl and placing his hand on her back. When her aunt turned her back to head to the car, his hand shifted even lower and Sansa scooted away.

Days earlier as the adoption was being finalized, he heard Sansa speaking with someone in a dark alcove of the hall. It took a moment to place the voice, finally he realized the not often heard rasp belonged to Sandor Clegane, the groundskeeper and a veteran with a burned face. “I could take you from here Little Bird. I could keep you safe.”

“That is very kind of you sir but I think I should like to go with my Aunt Lysa and Uncle Petyr. They will take care of me, I’m sure,” she chirped prettily.

He hoped she was right but poor Sansa couldn’t catch a break.

The car zipped away, peeling out of the place.

“I hope I’m adopted soon,” Sam stated wistfully.

“Sam, if you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.” George liked Sam, he had a good heart, but he could be terribly naive. After all that had happened in their young lives, what would it take for him and the others to realize that they were all small pieces in a much larger game, rigged by those older but not necessarily wiser.

“You’re just bitter George,” said Sam with his small sad smile as they had had this discussion many times. George was tired of it and at this point Sam was too, he didn’t want George to drag him down as it would be too easy. “Oh look, there’s Jon! Want to go play with him?”

“You go ahead. I’m busy.”

George finished fiddling in the bushes before moving some distance to sit atop his throne, an old metal chair with the back composed of broken fence pieces jutting high above the young boy. Ned Stark had made it for him and in his mind, it was an iron throne composed of the swords of his conquered enemies from which he surveyed the kingdom before him.

It started slowly at first and it took a while for someone to notice as the children were too engrossed in their games.

“Fire! Fire!” shouted Sandor as he raced from the building in a panic. The children were all outside and were shepherded through the fence by their decrepit caretakers, Old Nan and grumpy Old Walder, over to Highgarden. No one paid George any mind.

George smiled from his throne as he surveyed his kingdom of ice and fire as the building was soon engulfed in flames, his offering to the Red God, his god of death and vengeance. Wondering what the next chapter of their story would be as he knew the Lannisters didn’t have insurance.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed "A Cold Day in Winterhell." Thoughts and feedback are appreciated!


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